MTG Head Designer Tells Players Not To Throw One Ring Card Into An Active Volcano

Magic's chief designer has asked anyone who finds the One Ring to not throw it into an active volcano regardless of how poetically appropriate that action might be.

We got our first look at The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, Magic: The Gathering's upcoming Universes Beyond expansion, last week in a special presentation that revealed all your favorite Tolkien characters are about to become Magic cards. Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, and even Tom Bombadil will all be represented, as well as the Rings of Power and of course the One Ring.

Related: No Matter Who Finds MTG's Unique Lord Of The Rings One Ring Card, We All Lose

And to make things especially exciting, Tales of Middle-earth will also include serialized limited-edition cards. The Rings of Power (y'know, "three for the elves, seven for the dwarves, and nine for humans," those rings) will each be printed into the thousands, while foil versions of the same cards will be numbered into the hundreds. And one very special foil alternate art version of The One Ring will be printed just once and inserted into a single Collector's booster pack.

To be clear, there’s going to be lots of regular versions of The One Ring, but there will only be one serialized version. Although a fun nod to Lord of the Rings, it’s also a somewhat controversial move as that One Ring will be extremely valuable. Already one Magic collector has come forward to offer a $100,000 bounty to whoever pulls the One Ring.

There is one solution, of course: throw the One Ring into an active volcano. This was suggested by a Magic fan over on Mark Rosewater’s blog, and while the chief Magic designer admitted it would be "the ultimate TikTok video," he also advised against throwing "things into active volcanoes." Even though the One Ring would certainly burn to cinders in an instant, it's still littering.

Even at $100,000, the One Ring isn't Magic's most valuable card. That honor belongs to the Black Lotus, a powerful card from Magic's very release that recently sold for a record-breaking $540,000 at auction.

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